hikaemejin wrote:I've been slacking a bit lately with my Japanese so I thought I'd write a bit out to get back into the swing of things. I would greatly appreciate any corrections/suggestions.

そつぎょうしたらしばらくぶりにひまがあります。

I might suggest ひさしぶりに rather than しばらくぶり.

たのしみにしています。

Good!

でもたくさんものをしたくてひまがある時何をするか分かりません。

In this case you want こと not もの. もの is used for concrete objects, whereas こと is used for abstract things. Also, the structure is a little awkward. I might suggest, 「でも、したいことがたくさんあって、暇(ひま)な時、何をするかが分かりません。」

なつ休みに先生のよていは何ですか？

I might rearrange the order, but this is basically OK. 「先生の夏休みのごよていは何ですか？」. You also might want to throw a 「ご」 in front of the 「よてい」 just for politeness.

兄にロンドンに会うとやくそくします。

Do you mean you WILL promise, or you HAVE promised? If you have promised, it ought to be 「約束(やくそく)しています」.Also that should be 「ロンドンで」.

兄といっしょうにテニスのしあいがあってれんしゅうするのほうがいいです。

I'm not sure exactly what you want to say here. Are you playing vs. your brother, or are you both playing doubles vs. another pair? In either case, it should be 「練習(れんしゅう)した方(ほう)がいい」.

なつ休みにおわたらしごとをもうしこみます。

This should be 「休み*が*」「おわ*っ*たら」.

りよこうがいきたいのでお金がほしいです。

Probably just a typo, but that ought to be 「りょこう」 with a small 「ょ」. Also, it should be 旅行(りょこう)*に*いきたい」because you want to go on a trip. The trip itself doesn't want to go...

外国の中でどこに一ばん好きですか？

This is the opposite of above. It should be 「どこがいちばん好きですか？」. You don't really need the 「の中」, the meaning is fine wihout it.

私は日本のれきしがおもひろいですし日本語が上手になるし日本に行きたいです。

I think this is simply another typo, but that ought to be 「おも*し*ろい」. The structure of this is a tad awkward as well. I assume you mean that if you were to go, your Japanese would improve, so perhaps changing the order might be good.

It's probably riddled with mistakes but I've just finished handing in my final piece of work for the year and so I want to try again with Japanese. Thanks very much!

Very well written and coherent! Keep up the good work.

One piece of advice though; when writing long stretches of hiragana with no kanji, it might be best to break the sentence up with spaces to aid in parsing. (I know it's not natural to use spaces in Japanese, but it's also not natural to write everything in hiragana, and the times when this is done (eg: children's books) spaces are usually inserted for ease in reading.)

hikaemejin wrote:Oh on and off for a couple of years now, trouble is every time I get busy with uni work I don't do any Japanese for ages and it all goes. How long have you been going? From the looks of it a while.

12 years for me. But you're right; if you don't absolutely need to use a language it's easy to let it slip by the wayside. I know, for example, that my French has deteriorated to an atrocious state; because who in the heck am I going to speak to in small-town Japan?

As two_heads said, immersion is far and away the best method, but in cases when it's not feasible, you just have to have a lot of detetmination. I wish you luck, and I hope you enjoy practicing and speaking with the members here.

-Becki

A small PS: If there are any Japanese student groups etc. at your uni it might be worth checking them out, that way you can get natural speaking and listening practice too.

hikaemejin wrote:You can have all the immersion in the world but if you don't put in the effort it won't make much difference.

EXACTLY.This one one of the pet peeves of my wife and I. Everyone assumes that her English is good because she married a foreigner, not because she studies 5 hours a day. Immersion, or even being married is not going to get you fluent. It'll help, but in the end it all comes down to how much effort you put into it.

hikaemejin wrote:You can have all the immersion in the world but if you don't put in the effort it won't make much difference.

Oh, indeed. I know plenty of people who have lived in Japan for years and who can't speak much beyond ordering at a restaurant, so I'm aware that's the case. But if you are already putting in the effort, a full immersion environment is better, because you can get much more practice.

hikaemejin wrote:You can have all the immersion in the world but if you don't put in the effort it won't make much difference.

I only have a month exactly left of uni so a bit late for that now. I have done some Japanese as a free choice though while at uni.

And you can have all the materials and effort in the world and it won't equal the same as an immersed environment. What I am saying, and it seems to have caught you off guard, is that in a vaccuum or in the best scenario, good effort, study practices, materials and immersion are the perfect combination. You can always do well with less, but you can hardly do any better. I never insinuated that you had to be in an immersed environment.

I know everyone has their, " I hate it when people _____" moments, and unfortunately people in general make assumptions based on ignorance or at least uneducated guesses about things.

All this because I made a simple comment about someone having an "envious" (to me) environment to retain and refine their Japanese skills. Something that after mission and military, I have not had the benefit of having.

two_heads_talking wrote:And you can have all the materials and effort in the world and it won't equal the same as an immersed environment. What I am saying, and it seems to have caught you off guard, is that in a vaccuum or in the best scenario, good effort, study practices, materials and immersion are the perfect combination. You can always do well with less, but you can hardly do any better. I never insinuated that you had to be in an immersed environment.

I know everyone has their, " I hate it when people _____" moments, and unfortunately people in general make assumptions based on ignorance or at least uneducated guesses about things.

All this because I made a simple comment about someone having an "envious" (to me) environment to retain and refine their Japanese skills. Something that after mission and military, I have not had the benefit of having.

You didn't catch me off guard at all, I was just saying that Becki can't have gotten that good just on immersion alone. But obviously it is a lot easier to learn anything in an immersed environment.

hikaemejin wrote:You can have all the immersion in the world but if you don't put in the effort it won't make much difference.

EXACTLY.This one one of the pet peeves of my wife and I. Everyone assumes that her English is good because she married a foreigner, not because she studies 5 hours a day. Immersion, or even being married is not going to get you fluent. It'll help, but in the end it all comes down to how much effort you put into it.

Hrm, 5 hours a day. That's inspiring. Your wife is pretty awesome for being that dedicated. I think I will need to increase my daily training by a few hours. Well, that's one of the reason's I bought my new dictionary anyway, but I'm gonna shoot for 5 hours when i can now and see how things go.